Dispiriting Times

By Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald, Special to the BDN •July 30, 2012 5:40 pm

Yes, the latest Gallup poll numbers showing the public’s lack of confidence in some of our country’s major institutions are distressing. A nation needs to believe that its political and economic leaders have the character and vision to lead the country forward.

But it’s not as if we haven’t been here before. America has survived hard times in the past, and it’s not Pollyannaish to say that we can do so again.

There have been various times when Americans wondered if our heritage of national optimism had come to an end.

That was the case in the 1890s and the 1930s, times of dire economic hardship. It was true in the 1960s, an era of social upheaval and the nation’s divisions over the Vietnam conflict. It was true in the 1970s, the years of Watergate, “stagflation,” oil shocks and the Iranian hostage crisis.